And so it begins again, another journey into Middle Earth by way of Peter Jackson’s vivid visual imagination. But The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey does not catch fire in the way The Lord of the Rings did. Its storytelling is uncomfortable and unremarkable, and the cinematography and production design are done in by Jackson’s experimentation with High Frame Rate 3-D, a new innovation that doubles the frames per second for a crisper image. Unfortunately, it’s terribly unnatural to look at. Having said that, The Hobbit has also been released in various other formats, so you can likely avoid removing your 3-D glasses a half-dozen times to stabilize your eyes. Like Lord of the Rings, this is a quest, with Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) joining Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a roguish band of dwarves. They may be moving an awful lot, but this story never seems to go anywhere.
ByColin Boyd

Indy WeekThree-hour opener to Hobbit trilogyDespite billing itself as an unexpected journey, this is pretty much what we expect: lots of epic battles; sweeping shots of pristine landscape; a score caught in a permanent swell; no one uses contractions.by Nathan Gelgud12/12/2012